Though technically the hardware doesn’t have much to do with Web Design, in reality us web designers come to depend on our equipment. So anytime something doesn’t fulfill the function to which it is put, I plan to mention it.

Well, last computer upgrade (NOT the most recent one) I found to my dismay that both my scanner and my printer, which were good, quality units, didn’t have drivers for my op system. I hate that. Can we say “Planned Obsolescence”??? Despite the fact that these items served me well, and were still working when I was forced to send them to electronics recycling, I will probably not be buying another Epson printer because of that bit of scheming on their part. The scanner company is off the hook, since they went belly up.

So, in a panic, since I have to scan stuff in all the time, and needed a printer, I purchased an HP psc 1350 all in one Printer/Scanner/Copier locally. This purchase was made a few years ago. I’m considering an upgrade because I’ve been so unhappy with this damn thing. Now, though it’s possible they’ve improved stuff since then, the MANY little annoyances I have experienced with this unit are enough so that I will NEVER ever ever purchase another HP product. Of any sort.

I don’t do much printing. In fact, my office is as close to paperless as I can get it. So sometimes the dang inkjet cartridges get borked. Okay, that’s to be expected, and not the fault of the company. What wasn’t expected is that when there is a problem with an inkjet THE SCANNER WILL NOT FUNCTION. Now, I can understand the copy function not working if the inkjet cartridge is borked. But the SCANNER? This is about the most stupid engineering I’ve ever seen. And it caused me to have to drive to a store and spend top dollar on an ink cartridge since I needed it IMMEDIATELY just so I could use the damn scanner.

Now, we get to the paper tray, which hangs from the front of the unit and is held in place by two extremely tiny and fragile plastic dimples. Very breakable plastic dimples. Especially if you have a cat. And without that tray in place, the paper won’t feed in properly. Which means it’s now epoxied in there, which makes the unit awkward to box up if I have to move it. But at least it has a chance of continuing to function. This, again, is extremely poor engineering. A cat isn’t needed to break the damn thing (though that certainly did speed up the process) since it’s hanging out there in front of the unit for any bump or bruise to break off one of those dimples.

Something I don’t use on this is the card reader. The lettering is so tiny on it that it’s easier for me to use a usb SD card reader than try to find the slot on the front of the printer that takes the SD card. Poor usability.

And then there is the software . . . HP software has to be the third most invasive in the world (behind MS and Norton.) And it often makes other stuff not work. It just doesn’t play well with others. I can’t tell you how many times I installed software I wanted to use only to find out that either IT wouldn’t work or the printer wouldn’t work after I installed the piece of software. So then I had to go through the rigamarole of uninstalling both the software and the HP psc, then cleaning the registry, then installing the software, then reinstalling the HP psc. And sometimes, not always, that would do it. But there are a few programs I would very much like to use that I can’t use as long as I have this HP PSC installed. I resent HP telling me, even inadvertently, what software I can use. Oh, and I stopped getting HP updates since they routinely break other stuff. And since I don’t trust them to write secure software, since they can’t write GOOD software, this is a biggie. Poor engineering. VERY poor.

So now I find myself looking at scanners and printers and combined units. Do you know that companies don’t like to answer questions like “If the inkjet cartridge needs replacing, will the scanner still work?” or “Is your paper tray cat proof?” or “Does your software and drivers interact well with whatever other software I want to use?” And even if I get answers to these questions,can I trust them? After all, they want me to buy their product. After I’ve bought it I’m stuck with it, unless I wanna send it to some service area halfway around the world, for an unspecified timeframe, after speaking with five different people who I can’t understand, if they do what most major corporations do. Customer service. Yeah, right.

If anyone has any recommendations of what to buy, I’d love to hear them.

Technorati Tags: HP all in one psc, bad engineering, HP printer, HP scanner

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 11:39 am and is filed under Hardware Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.